Ouch!

This hurts!

Talking about Andy, "In an interview with race TV, he bleated on about how absolutely unfair it was that the riders should be forced to ride downhill in the rain."

and

"So what have the Schlecks achieved by throwing the toys out of the cot?
They have exposed their weaknesses for all the world to see and they have shown themselves to be mentally fragile."

So said the Bleacher Report (chorus of "who?") today.

Pfff! (*dismissive noise*) We still have Andy and Frankie sitting 3rd and 4th in the GC - well, ok, 4th and 3rd, if you insist.

And they are confident: they didn't lose any more time today,  they made a mad dash towards the end - when you would think that they would be tired out - and I have great hopes that things are going to be much more interesting, from our point of view, tomorrow and Friday.

Matt Rendell interviewed Frankie after the stage, and he was quite firm on the point that no-one wants to see the riders getting hurt. "We are breaking bones here" said Frankie.

If you'd like to listen to it, it's here, just click on the mp3 file to download it, and it's about 70% of the way through.

Well, no comments or pictures to enliven the post as I haven't seen the footage of Stages 16 and 17 yet. And I might not have time for much over the weekend, as it's going to be full of Tour footage! So bear with me, all will be back to normal ("normal?") next week, with exams over and lots of time to discuss the results. No, the results of the Tour.

Figgy must be either out there or well on her way by now, and Leelu is already there - go Schlecklanders! (*examines all Tour footage very carefully for Schlecklanders in the audience*)

Fingers crossed, everyone, for a good result: preferably with no-one else breaking anything!

(*resists urge to make any more jokey "predictions" after the total success-in-the-wrong-direction of my earlier predictions..... wasps... broken collarbones.... intestinal upsets... *)